Josef von Sternberg famous quotes

The only way to succeed is to make people hate you.
-- Josef von Sternberg

#Hate #Work #People

The finished product is not finished when the actor is. The work is completed by a pair of shears.
-- Josef von Sternberg

#Actors #Pairs #Shears

Every light has a point where it is brightest and a point toward which it wanders to lose itself completely. It must be intercepted to fulfill its mission; it cannot function in a void. Light can go straight, penetrate and turn back, be reflected and deflected, gathered and spread, bent as by a soap bubble, made to sparkle and be blocked. Where it is no more is blackness, and where it begins is the core of its brightness. The journey of rays from that central core to the outposts of blackness is the adventure and drama of light.
-- Josef von Sternberg

#Drama #Adventure #Journey

There are some things which cannot be learned, though they can be studied. Among them are the laws of art—and the lawlessness of it, as well.
-- Josef von Sternberg

#Art #Law #Lawlessness

A shaft of white light used properly can be far more effective than all the color in the world used indiscriminately.
-- Josef von Sternberg

#Light #Color #White

Shadow conceals—light reveals. To know what to reveal and what to conceal, and in what degrees to do this, is all there is to art.
-- Josef von Sternberg

#Art #Light #Shadow

Shadow conceals—light reveals. To know what to reveal and what to conceal, and in what degrees to do this, is all there is to art.
-- Josef von Sternberg

#Art #Light #Shadow

A few weeks later, I’m in a fluorescent-lit classroom in Chelsea awaiting the start of the official Mensa test. I’m sitting next to a guy who’s doing a series of elaborate neck stretches, like we’re about to engage in a vigorous rugby match. He’s neatly laid out four types of gum on his Formica desk: Juicy Fruit, Wrigley Spearmint, Big Red, and Eclipse. I hate this guy. I hope to God he’s not a genius.

I love writing, but hate starting. The page is awfully white and it says, 'You may have fooled some of the people some of the time but those days are over, Giftless. I'm not your agent and I'm not your mommy: I'm a white piece of paper. You wanna dance with me?' and I really, really don't. I'll go peaceable-like.

I hate the color red almost as much as i hate blond hair,"he said with an amused tone. -Dank

I hate to complain...No one is without difficulties, whether in high or low life, and every person knows best where their own shoe pinches.

Ambition often puts Men upon doing the meanest offices; so climbing is performed in the same position with creeping.

All progress has resulted from people who took unpopular positions.

Almost anything is easier to get into than to get out of.

My goal has been to encourage jointness, to push people to think of affiliations rather than to operate as solo entrepreneurs.

The bells they sound on Bredon, And still the steeples hum. "Come all to church, good people"- Oh, noisy bells, be dumb; I hear you, I will come.

Money has no color. If you can build a better mousetrap, it won't matter whether you're black or white. People will buy it.